Hello I Was Wondering About Popular Or Common Slavic Embroidery Patterns ? I Unfortunately Don’t Know

Mavka

Day 5 of Annie Week on Twitter: Mythology In Ukrainian mythology, the mavka is a forest spirit, close to a mermaid, in the form of a beautiful naked girl or girls dressed in a long white shirt with green hair and pale skin, plant crown with plants as a fern (also magical plant in Ukr mythology). According to folk beliefs, the souls of drowned women turn into mavka. They also live not only in the forest but close to rivers, lakes, etc. The tales of mavka are popular in the West of Ukraine, Carpathians, Podilla, and Galicia regions. Each region of Ukraine has a unique embroidery style and the embroidery is used in traditional clothes in Ukraine. Patters are used primarily on the shirts and we call it "vyshyvanka"/"vyshyta sorochka" which is literally translated as "embroidery shirt". The pattern I used here is a mix of patterns from Galicia region. Each shirt is like a separate work of art.

Magic Old New Year fortune telling - 6 tasty ways to find out your fate

The holiday period from January 7 to 19 is considered special in Ukraine. Ukrainian ancestors believed that during this time the fate could open its secrets and mysteries, so they tried to get answers to the most personal questions. They found out about the future from various folk sayings and divination. The Old New Year is celebrated on January 13. The Old New Year evening, which is also called Generous, was deemed to be one of the best days for fortune telling. What’s interesting, both unmarried girls and young men tried to discover their fate. Ukrainians also closely observed what happened in nature and in the house during the whole holiday day and Old New Year evening.

Some folk sayings have survived to this day. For instance, if there is money in the house during the Old New Year evening - you will live in abundance all year round. This day you should in no case lend your money in order not to take happiness out of your house. Ukrainians observed the Old New Year nig…↴ https://ukrainian-recipes.com/magic-old-new-year-fortune-telling-6-tasty-ways-to-find-out-your-fate.html

"A Ukrainian ceremony in which an egg was used to cure fever has been documented. A Babka rolled an egg over a patients body and then broke it into water. The cure was said to be guaranteed if the healer was able to discern the cause of a fear by interpreting the egg-white formations (Podolinskii 1879, 186). In other descriptions, an egg was rolled over an inflicted person and thrown to dogs to eat (Chubinskii 1872, 42, 131)."

The Word And Wax: A Medical Folk Ritual Among Ukrainians in Alberta by Rena Jeanne Hanchuk

Slavic resources in english: my collection of academic resources for beginners on the subject of slavic folklore, paganism and folk magic

Is Slavic paganism closed? - my thoughts

Slavic offerings

Slavic creation myths

My translation: Veles

My translation: Yarilo

My translation: Mokosh

Mokosh: offerings and devotions

Quotes: Perun and Veles as Saints

Quotes: Prophet Elijah and Saint Nicholas, a folktale

Quotes: Sources for Rod and Rozhanitsy

Quotes: Kupala, Kostroma, Yarilo and Mara - seasonal rituals of the Slavs

Quotes: Russian domovoi lore

What’s a zagovor and how it’s built.

Key tags: #slavic paganism #slavic folklore #slavic art #magia Slavorum  #asks

Other recommended tags: #slavic folk - traditional clothing and folk art, #ancestral veneration #wooden architecture #embroidery #folk magic #maskers

My asks are open but please keep in mind that I did not receive academic education in the field of Slavic studies. Any answers I might provide will be based on my experiences as a Polish person and Slavic pagan as well as my own unsystematized research.

Slavic paganism is an open path, however please approach it respectfully by educating yourself on Slavic culture and making an effort to not propagate already rampant misinformation any further.

Lastly I’d like to disclaim that as helpful as the words “Slavs” and “Slavic” can be at the beginning of your research it is of paramount importance to remember that the “Slavs” were never a unified ethnocultural group or civilization. 

When Fern Blooms (Hope Floats): Elusive

Kupala Night, also called Ivanа-Kupala, is a traditional eastern Slavic holiday which is celebrated in Ukraine, Poland, Belarus and Russia during the night from 6 to 7 July (on the Gregorian calendar). (This corresponds to 23-24 June on these countries’ traditional Julian calendar.) Calendar-wise, it is opposite to the winter holiday Koliada. The celebration relates to the summer solstice when nights are the shortest and includes a number of Slavic rituals.

The name of the holiday was originally Kupala; a pagan fertility rite later adapted into the Orthodox Christian calendar by connecting it with St. John’s Day which is celebrated on 24 June.

The Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian name of this holiday combines “Ivan” (John, in this case John the Baptist) and Kupala which was thought to be derived from the Slavic word for bathing, which is cognate. However, it likely stems from the proto-Slavic kump, a gathering. The two feasts could be connected by reinterpreting John’s baptizing people through full immersion in water. However, the tradition of Kupala predates Christianity. The pagan celebration was adapted and reestablished as one of the native Christian traditions intertwined with local folklore.

The holiday is still enthusiastically celebrated by the younger people of Eastern Europe. The night preceding the holiday (Tvorila night) is considered the night for “good humour” mischiefs (which sometimes would raise the concern of law enforcement agencies). On Ivan Kupala day itself, children engage in water fights and perform pranks, mostly involving pouring water over people.

Many of the rites related to this holiday are connected with the role of water in fertility and ritual purification. This is due to the ancient Kupala rites. On Kupala day, young people jump over the flames of bonfires in a ritual test of bravery and faith. The failure of a couple in love to complete the jump, while holding hands, is a sign of their destined separation.

Girls may float wreaths of flowers (often lit with candles) on rivers, and attempt to gain foresight into their romantic relationship fortune from the flow patterns of the flowers on the river. Men may attempt to capture the wreaths, in the hope of capturing the interest of the woman who floated it.

There is an ancient Kupala belief that the eve of Ivan Kupala is the only time of the year when ferns bloom. Prosperity, luck, discernment, and power befall whom ever finds a fern flower (Chervona ruta). Therefore, on that night, village folk roam through the forests in search of magical herbs, and especially, the elusive fern flower (Chervona ruta).

Traditionally, unmarried women, signified by the garlands in their hair, are the first to enter the forest. They are followed by young men. Therefore, the quest to find herbs and the fern flower (Chervona ruta) may lead to the blooming of relationships between pairs within the forest.

According to folklore, the flower is Chervona ruta. The flower is yellow, but according to legend, it turns red on the eve of Ivan Kupala Day. Ferns are not angiosperms (flowering plants), and instead reproduce by spores.

In Gogol’s story The Eve of Ivan Kupala, a young man finds the fantastical fern-flower, but is cursed by it. Gogol’s tale may have been the stimulus for Modest Mussorgsky to compose his tone poem Night on Bald Mountain, adapted by Yuri Ilyenko into a film of the same name.

SOURCES: Image #1: Wikimedia Commons: License: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Source Photographer: Simon Kozhin/С.Л.Кожин Title: Kupala Night, Divination on the Wreaths Artist: Simon Kozhin/С.Л.Кожин Image #2: Wikimedia Commons:   Title: Night on the Eve of Ivan Kupala Artist: Henryk Hector Siemiradzki License: Public Domain Image #3: Wikimedia Commons: Title: Івана Купала (Ivanа-Kupala). Stamp of Ukraine (1998) License: Public Domain Text:  Wikipedia: Kupala Night:  Fern Flower: Chervona ruta. License:  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

"There is still a saying among people, "The moon is our god, and who will rule over us when he is gone?" - Outline of Ukrainian Mythology, V. Hnatiuk

The Zoryas✨

What follows is a few insights from years of research and practice within my own culture, as I am entering a Filianic space. Due to the nature of this format and the largely educational goal, it would be impossible to reflect the full image of these folkloric figures as seen by the original peoples; on the other hand, quite obviously, none of the information below was initially intended to be viewed from this perspective, and as such is to be taken as a partial and personal impression of an lived culture that is to be respected in its own right.

The Zoryas are a Slavic folkloric figure group associated with largely love and healing. The most common contexts for invoking them are magical incantations and folk songs.

The name, which is plural, literally means "stars", which is, of course, a potent symbol of hope and reassurance in the Filianic faith. They may be encountered as a group of three, calling to the trinitarian nature of the practice, the Evening, Midnight, and the Morning Star, each assigned a somewhat different character (usually sorrowful, pensive, and joyful), or as a singular being. In many examples there are also parallel texts in active use that either call upon them, or replace them, it seems fully equivalently, with Mother Mary.

Though adorned and certainly involved in what one would assume gentle matters, in many cases they are shown in a knightly form, riding horses across the sky, measuring time and watching over us, sovereign and never paired to a male.

As mentioned before, their presence is welcomed for protection and healing, and love. This once again showcases their general care for universal order, as in a sense healing and safety are just a restoral of harmony to body and life.

Then, of course, young women looking to find love would near universally call the dear sisters to ignite the feeling in another's heart and make themselves irresistibly attractive. Romance being self-explanatory, the love we have in our hearts is a sister to the love that drives particles to motion, spirit to action, and a human being to seek companionship of any kind. Going hand in hand, - and this is where we enter the realm of a personally held belief, - the cultivation of beauty within your own self is a divinely driven desire for joy and pleasure in everything, a way of honouring your person as a divine being. Similarly to this, an artist would generally endeavor to depict a deity or a saint as pleasingly as they can, as as not to idolize but to show respect towards them and grace within them.

Personally, as a Ukrainian and a perennialist, these figures to me speak of the universality of certain principles that reoccur within the human psyche due to experiencing them directly. This is the seed of truth within the image that grows from it.

On the other hand, of course, I am speaking here in a very incomplete manner. Any questions are welcome.

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My Western, mostly American and Anglo-Saxon friends: Halloween

My Celtic friends: Samhain

Me, a Slav: DZIADY

But seriously, I really recommend you to read about Dziady (or the Forefathers’ Eve, as that’s how it is sometimes translated into English). It is traditionally celebrated in Belarus, Ukraine, Baltic countries, and some parts of Poland as well. Similarly to Celtic Samhain, it is also believed that during Dziady our ancestors come back to the world of the living. As the descendants, we are obligated to welcome them properly, commemorate them, and learn from whatever advice they may have for us. It's really cool, Adam Mickiewicz, the national poet of Poland, Lithuania and Belarus, even wrote a drama inspired by this feast!

(“Dziady, pradziady, przyjdzcie do nas!” Depiction of dziady ritual in Belarus, Stanisław Bagieński. Source: Wikipedia)

More under this link:

en.m.wikipedia.org

Dziady - Wikipedia

Dziady - Wikipedia

Рута - Rue

In Carpatho-Ukraine and Hutsul belief, the common rue (ruta graveolens), which normally blooms yellow, will bloom red every ten years. The red ruta, featured in literature and folk songs, can be used to charm a person of your desire. 

It is also believed that during storms the devil can find shelter in the rue plant.

(translated by me from Магія Українців - Лілія Мусіхіна; Ukrainian Magic by Lilia Musikhina)

Vinok wreath

The Ukrainian wreath (Ukrainian: вінок, vinók) is a type of wreath which, in traditional Ukrainian culture, is worn by girls and young unmarried women. The wreath may be part of a tradition dating back to the old East Slavic customs that predate the Christianization of Rus. The flower wreath remains a part of the Ukrainian national attire, and is worn on festive occasions and on holy days and since the 2014 Ukrainian revolution increasingly in daily life.

On the day of Ivan Kupala, young women placed their wreaths in the water with a lighted candle, foretelling their romantic future by how the wreath flowed down the river or lake. From the wreath’s direction, the girl could tell whom she would marry: if the wreath stayed in one spot and did not float down the water, she would not marry; if it went under, she would die; if the candle went out, misfortune would follow. The young men would dive into the water, trying to retrieve the vinok of the girl each loved. One of the ritual Kupala songs says, “Who will catch the wreath will catch the girl, who will get the wreath will become mine.“ It dates back to pre-Christian times when it was thought that the headdress would protect girls from evil spirits. The ceremonial, religious value diminished, and was later replaced as a national character of girlhood: to lose a wreath in folk songs and traditions means for a maiden to transition into womanhood.

Like most Ukrainian folk dress, the vinok had significant symbolic value and only specific flowers were used. It was traditionally worn by girls who were eligible for marriage. The wreath’s name, vinok, is related to the Ukrainian word for a wedding ceremony vinchannya.

The flowers used to make the wreath were generally fresh, paper or waxen and were attached onto a band of stiff paper backing covered with a ribbon.

The wreath varied in many of the regions of Ukraine; young women throughout the country wore various headdresses of yarn, ribbon, coins, feathers and grasses, but these all had the same symbolic meaning. In parts of central and eastern Ukraine the flowers were raised in the center front. Usually multicolored, embroidered ribbons were attached to the back.

During the Ukrainian wedding ceremony, the vinok was replaced by the ochipok, a cap that she would wear for the rest of her life.